Change Will Come Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Change will come
But only if you invite it in.
Beauty does not surge.
Peace does not storm.
Enlightenment does not attack.

Nor can you chase it like prey
Restlessly marching by night and day
Sure that if you are perpetually searching
You can somehow overcome it as it rests.

The first barrier is your own armor:
Your preconceptions, your preconditions,
Everything you have learned
All the wisdom you have worked to acquire,
Must be held up to the sunlight
And released to a higher power.

The next obstacle is your desires,
As selfless as they may seem.
Dreams of perfect peace are still your will
Insisting itself upon the whole.

The final impediment is time.
Our awareness of our own mortality
Presses on us like a deadline.
We fill our days with work and play
As if we can take our memories to our grave.

We have lost the art of stillness.
We have lost the ability to listen.
We treasure action above passivity
We glorify those who change the world
And forget that enlightenment dawns on those
Who allow the world to swallow them up whole.